Cover Story: Tom Gauld’s “Turkey Day”

“I grew up in the countryside in the north of Scotland, where it got very dark and cold over the winter,” says Tom Gauld, the London-based cartoonist who drew this week’s cover, “Turkey Day.” “That has left me with a love of warming, stodgy winter food, particularly puddings: syrup sponge, mince pies, and Christmas pudding.”

“We don’t really have an equivalent of Thanksgiving in Britain—the big family meal where you eat too much happens at Christmas, and that’s when you’d traditionally eat a turkey. On November 5th, we celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, which is more about fireworks, bonfires, and mulled wine than about food. Thanksgiving is a bit like baseball for me, something which I’m aware of through American films, television, and books. As a child, I had a Richard Scarry book which mentioned Thanksgiving, and, come to think of it, it also had an image of a family of pigs sitting down to a meal involving a really big turkey—or maybe it was a roast chicken!”

See below for a slide show of a dozen short comics excerpted from Gauld’s latest book, “You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack.”